Seat reclining mechanisms employing planetary gear drives for achieving reduction appropriate to hand knob actuation are known in the prior art, that closest to the present invention being shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,211,451 which discloses an internally toothed ring gear in each of the two hinge plates for respective mounting on a seat and a back rest. One ring gear has more teeth than the other and the respective ring gears are engaged by common planetary gears which are in turn driven by a sun gear to provide a relative differential drive due to the different number of teeth in the ring gears.
Additional prior art of record in applicant's prior related application includes the following:
______________________________________ Patent No. Date Name Class Sub-Class ______________________________________ 2,591,967 4/1951 Ridgely etal 74 801 3,165,947 1/1965 Smith 74 788 3,203,275 8/1965 Hoover 74 801 3,764,162 10/1973 Rawlings 74 801 4,211,451 7/1980 Shephard 74 801 4,345,792 8/1982 Shephard 16 354 1,094,608 12/1960 Reutter 297 362 (Germany) ______________________________________